May7, 2007

Mr. Speaker, France has a new President, Nicolas Sarkozy. While the world waits to see if he will give vigor and energy and leadership to his complex and sometimes difficult French people, his position on illegal immigration is quite clear.

Europe has its influx of illegals, not unlike the United States. Northern Africans are fleeing their native lands for Europe. They go mostly to Spain, where French President-elect Sarkozy accuses Spain of promoting amnesty in that Nation. Of course, once in Spain, it seems these illegals can roam Europe with ease.

Mr. Sarkozy claims Spain wants to give amnesty to now 600,000 illegals in its Nation. Mr. Sarkozy wants to ban European Nations from offering amnesty. He wants to bolster the EU border agency, the group that parols the African coast, with more police forces and use of the military to prevent the illegal landings in Europe.

It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that Morocco, one of the Nations where people illegally flee to Europe from, wants the illegal flight to stop from its Nation. Almost 40 percent of the Africans that go to Europe by sea die in the process. This is a world crisis. Morocco wants to develop its native lands with European aid to keep people home, change the despair to hope by economic development, quit sending its problem to Europe but solve its problem. African Nations see the answer to solving their economic problems is not sending their populations to the north to Europe.

Mr. Sarkozy wants the European Union to have an EU-wide policy on illegal immigration and deal with this issue head-on instead of ignore the obvious. We shall see if this cooperation with the EU and France and the African countries works to stop the illegal entry, and we wish Mr. Sarkozy well in his presidency of France.

Meanwhile, back at home, here in the United States, our borders seem to be as open as ever because our government does not have the moral will to enforce the rule of law.